Chuck vs The Fall
by Seraphim25
Summary: Chuck always believed that Sarah was the strongest person he knew. So when something bad happens to her will Chuck be able to cope? In this story Chuck and Sarah are married and Chuck has the intersect.
1. Chapter 1

Hi all- Here is the first chapter of my first Chuck story. I hope you enjoy it!

Please read and review to let me know what you think and if I should continue. Thanks!

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It was two in the morning when the phone rang. Chuck startled awake, then rolled lazily to the side so he could reach it. He felt a flicker of annoyance but it only lasted a moment. Getting calls at all hours of the day and night was normal in his household. Between his jobs as a nerd herder and a spy, he'd had even more wake up calls than most on call doctors.

The only unusual thing this time was that he was alone. Normally Sarah would be there to nudge him awake, reluctant to answer the phone herself. But Sarah had gone on a mission with Casey earlier that evening, and he wasn't expecting her back for another few hours.

When Chuck saw Casey's picture pop up on the screen, his first thought was that maybe his teammates needed the intersect after all. He didn't mind being sidelined on this mission. It was fairly straightforward, and he knew his wife was more than capable of taking care of herself, but Chuck was still hoping to get in on the action.

"Yeah Casey?" he answered, his voice a bit groggy from sleep.

"Chuck? Where are you?" asked Casey.

The urgent tone of Casey's voice gave Chuck goosebumps. His body was immediately flooded with anxiety.

"I'm at home. What's wrong? Where's Sarah?" Chuck asked his questions in quick succession, hoping against hope that she was safe.

"Not sure. There were more guards here than we thought and they caught her. I don't want to go in until I have backup."

Chuck's blood ran cold. He pushed the button for speakerphone and hurried around, throwing on the first pair of pants and t-shirt he could find.

"Where are you?" he asked, searching for the keys to the Nerd Herder.

"An abandoned warehouse outside Santa Barbara. Beckman's trying to send backup, but there was a bomb threat at the state house and they're understaffed. Damn terrorists!"

"I'll be right there!" Chuck promised, rushing out the door while Casey gave him directions.

As he drove down the highway, faster than the legal limit, Chuck took deep breaths to steady himself. He was worried about Sarah, there was no question about that, but he knew she would get out of this. _She'll probably have escaped by the time I arrive_, Chuck told himself. There was no better fighter than Sarah, and he had the utmost faith in her. That didn't mean he was going to drive less than eighty miles per hour though.

When Chuck reached the address Casey had given him, he immediately spotted Sarah's Lotus, next to which stood the colonel. He grabbed his tranq gun and hurried over to his partner.

"Any word from Sarah?" he asked.

"No, but I think she's on the top floor. I heard voices coming from there but there were too many guards to stage an attack. Are you ready to fight?"

Chuck nodded, his face set, and followed behind Casey.

"When we get up there," Casey whispered, "we're gonna sneak in and shoot as many as possible before they see us. Your main job is to get Sarah free so she can help us fight. Got it?"

Chuck nodded his agreement. He had confidence in Casey's abilities and would do whatever he said, especially to save Sarah.

As the men approached the top floor, they heard the sound of angry voices. It sounded as though someone were being threatened, and Chuck felt sick knowing it was his wife. Casey took a quick glance inside of the room, and then whispered to Chuck,

"Nine guards. Three are armed...shoot them first."

As soon as Casey gave him firm nod, Chuck went in and aimed his gun at the first guard he saw, shooting him with two darts to be safe. He looked over at Casey and saw that he had taken down the other armed guards but was now fighting off three more men, apparently having lost his weapon..

Chuck looked at Sarah for a brief moment. She had a trickle of blood running down her face but seemed otherwise unharmed. Chuck couldn't reach her though, because two burly men were approaching him, fists clenched. Chuck shot the larger of the two, but the single dose of tranquilizer didn't seem to be strong enough. As he lifted his gun for the second time, the other man kicked it out of his hand.

Chuck flashed on some martial arts and took the heftier of the two men down fairly easily. The second man seemed to be more highly skilled though, because he was putting up a good fight. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the last guard was untying Sarah from the heavy chair, already starting to drag her away. This made Chuck smile to himself, the guy had no idea that Sarah would have him knocked out on the floor within seconds of getting her hands free.

Chuck turned his focus back to the man with whom he was fighting. His opponent was in excellent shape, but Chuck was confident that he would win the fight with just a little more time. The muscular man was already growing tired.

He chanced a glance at Sarah once more and grinned when he saw she had already taken down her opponent. She began making her way over to help Chuck, when one of the men Casey had been fighting made a run for it. He dashed up a nearby staircase, and Sarah followed him.

Less than a minute later, Chuck finally dealt a blow to his opponent's head that was strong enough to knock him out. He looked over at Casey and saw that he was battling one last particularly fit man, but seemed to be holding his own. Without another thought, he raced up the stairs to find Sarah.

He climbed up to the roof and was relieved to see her immediately, dealing a roundhouse kick to the muscular man's head. He felt the familiar swell of pride rise up in his chest as he watched his wife's physical prowess. He moved quickly to help her, worried because she was still bleeding a bit from the head, but as he approached, her opponent managed to give her a hard push towards the edge of he building. Chuck's breath caught in his throat. He wished he had his gun, but it was somewhere entirely unreachable on the floor below.

Sarah planted her hands on the low wall behind her and kicked her feet against the chest of the large man before her. He fell to the ground and for a moment Chuck thought he was down for the count.

Chuck looked at Sarah and was about to smile in relief, but then he noticed that the guard was still conscious. He shouted out something, he wasn't sure what, and Sarah realized that the man on the ground was moving. She went to kick him again, but he reached out one of his immense hands and grabbed her ankle, throwing her off balance. Then, with his other hand he grabbed Sarah's other foot and lifted both her legs up, causing her to lose her balance and begin to tip backwards.

Everything that happened after that seemed to Chuck to be in slow motion. He ran towards her, hoping to be able to grab her hand, but wasn't fast enough. Sarah grappled with the side of the roof, and for a second Chuck thought she would be able to catch herself. But to his horror, his wife's hand slipped from the wet edge, and she tumbled backwards, out of Chuck's line of vision, an expression of fear on her face.

"Nooooo!" yelled Chuck. He didn't even bother to look off of the roof, instead finding the nearest fire escape and climbing down as quickly as he could. The ladder was slick with rainwater as well, and he nearly slipped and fell himself. Somehow he managed to reach the bottom safely though, and he rushed over to where his wife's body lay, forebodingly still. A part of Chuck wanted to run away and never look back. He didn't want to see his wife lying so lifelessly. _What if she's..._he thought, but couldn't bear to finish the sentence, even in his own head.

But despite his fears, there was no way that Chuck would be able to avoid going to Sarah. He was drawn to her as strongly as he always had been.

Chuck finally reached Sarah's body, and he felt the panic within him threaten to boil over. He would never be able to forget the way she looked in that moment. One of her legs was angled in a way that made him feel sick to his stomach, and her hair was caked with blood and dirt. He got down on his knees beside her and slowly, soulfully, moved her hair away from her face. Her right cheek was already bruising and the rest of her face was white in the moonlight, but the only thing that concerned him was the spot on her neck, just below her jaw, that would tell him whether he still had a reason for living.

He felt around for a few seconds, getting more and more anxious, until he finally felt the slow but steady rhythm that was her pulse. Feeling a seed of hope, Chuck glance down at her chest and saw an almost imperceptible rise and fall.

Grateful beyond words that she was still alive, Chuck took out his phone to call for help. Once he had explained to the operator what had happened and where he was, he hung up and dialed Casey's number.

"Where are you?" Casey asked at once.

"I'm in the back of the building," answered Chuck, "on the lawn. Sarah...Sarah fell off the roof!"

"Be right there," Casey answered, and the call disconnected.

Chuck slid his phone back into his pocket and huddled over his wife once more, begging her to be okay.

"Help is coming, Sarah. Just hang on. Please, hang on. You're gonna be fine."

He hoped to God he wasn't lying.

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Thanks so much for reading! Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

Here is the next chapter. Thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews last time. I will have to continue!

By the way, I don't own any part of Chuck. Obviously.

Enjoy!

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Casey soon found the spot where Sarah had fallen, and although he tried to put on a brave face, it was easy to see that he knew how dire the situations was. Sarah seemed to have lost almost a pint of blood, and he knew she had to have some internal bleeding.

Casey stood watch over his two partners, his normally tough heart breaking at the sight of Sarah's helplessness and Chuck's desperation. After about ten minutes, Casey heard large vehicles approaching the warehouse and went to see if it was the rescue squad. It turned out to be the back up Beckman had promised, about an hour too late. When Casey explained to the officers what had happened, they grabbed their emergency supplies and followed him to Sarah's location. They went right to work, putting her neck in a brace and bandaging her head, but there wasn't much more they could do without the EMTs.

Luckily the ambulance wasn't far behind, and soon Sarah was being placed on a stretcher, Chuck hovering over her as if his presence alone would save her. Although, Casey had to admit that if anyone's presence could save Sarah, it woupe be her husband's.

Casey watched Chuck as he followed the stretcher to the nearby ambulance. For a second, Casey thought the EMTs were not going to let Chuck ride along, but breathed a sigh of relief when the tall man was allowed to enter the ambulance. He would have had a tough time explaining to the NSA why the intersect had taken out a team of paramedics.

Once the door to the ambulance was shut, Casey walked over to Sarah's car, which they had taken to get to their mission. He knew she would kill him when she found out he had driven her precious vehicle, but hoped she would be alive to do so.

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As Chuck sat in the ambulance near Sarah, watching her being poked and prodded by the EMT, he was taken back to the last time he had been in a similar situation. It was just after their engagement party, and although he had been cradling Sarah's unconscious body in the back of Ellie and Awesome's van instead of in an ambulance, he couldn't help but get a sense of deja vu.

He had known Sarah was a spy almost from the beginning. Danger had always been a part of their relationship, but Chuck knew that Sarah was a great spy. An awesome spy. The best. He had never been nearly as worried about her safety as he supposed he could have. It was her job to protect him, and she had done it so well that he had taken for granted she would always be there for him. Even after she had been poisoned, Chuck hadn't lost faith in her. That had been a fluke. She had been targeted by Vivian to get to him, and she had made it out alive and whole.

This was different. She had been defeated. Chuck hated to admit it, because she was his hero, but Sarah had lost a fight. Her mangled body was proof of that. He had always thought his wife was infallible, but what if she wasn't? What if this was it?

Chuck shuddered, but was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the back doors opening on the ambulance. Sarah's hand slid from his own as she and the stretcher were lowered to the ground. Chuck hopped down himself and jogged alongside as his wife was brought into the hospital. Soon nurses and doctors had surrounded them, and Chuck was inundated by confusing medical terminology. He wished that Ellie were there, so she could explain some of it to him.

As they reached a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, one of the nurses pulled him aside.

"You can't go in there," he said, apologetically.

"But she's my wife," Chuck pleaded, "I need to be with her."

The nurse looked sympathetic but explained his reasoning. "She's going into surgery, so you'd only get in the way. We're going to need you to fill out some paperwork in the waiting room anyway. I'll keep you updated every step of the way," he promised, seeing the look of sorrow on Chuck's face.

Chuck agreed, willing to do anything so that Sarah could be taken care of, and followed the nurse into a nearby waiting room. Once he was alone, he glanced at the paperwork but couldn't bring himself to fill it out just yet. He needed to tell Casey where they were, and call Ellie. He knew she would come sit with him. Although he felt badly about dragging his sister out of bed in the middle of the night, she was the most trustworthy doctor he knew, and he wanted her to be keeping an eye on Sarah.

After Chuck had made his calls, he set to work completing Sarah's paperwork. He was careful to fill out every section as completely as possible, so that nothing would get in the way of Sarah's care.

By the time he had finished, Casey was seated beside him. "What happened back there?" the colonel asked, visibly concerned.

"Sarah was fighting that big guard who ran away from you, and he managed to push her off the roof. I didn't even see where he went," Chuck admitted guiltily. "I was too busy checking on Sarah."

"I don't think he was a guard," said Casey. "He was too well trained. I think he was the leader."

"Leader?" repeated Chuck. "What was this mission about anyway?"

Casey began explaining that he and Sarah were supposed to capture and arrest a man, Ken Greer, who was selling advanced weapons technology to nations in the Middle East. They had gotten a tip that the warehouse would be a good place to find clues, but it turned out to be a meeting place for Greer and his staff. As a result, Casey and Sarah had been attacked unexpectedly, and Sarah was captured.

Chuck only heard bits of what Casey was saying. His mind refused to focus on anything but thoughts of his wife, and prayers that she would recover. After nearly an hour with no news of Sarah's condition, both Chuck and Casey were relieved when Ellie walked in the room.

"Chuck!" she exclaimed, rushing over to hug him. "Have you heard anything yet?"  
Chuck shook his head, feeling as though his heart might break in two at any second. "How far did she fall? What were her injuries?" Ellie asked anxiously.

"Over eight stories," Chuck answered numbly. "She at least had a broken leg, and a lot of bruising, and there was blood-" he began to get choked up "-a lot of blood..."  
Tears began to make their way to Chuck's eyes, causing Ellie to wrap her arms around her brother once more.

The three sat in solemn silence for over a half hour more until Casey's phone began to ring. "Beckman," he grunted, and left the waiting room to take his call.

When he returned he carried a tray containing steaming coffees, and gave one to each of them.

"What did Beckman say?" Chuck asked, not even bothering to sip the coffee. His stomach was churning dangerously and he didn't want to upset it further.

"She apologized for the misinformation and said that we don't need to report to Castle tomorrow."

"That's nice of her," scoffed Chuck, feeling bitterness towards the redheaded general who had sent his wife into an unknown situation. He rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

"It was a mistake Bartowski. It happens."

Chuck wasn't about to back down. It felt good to have a distraction from his emotional turmoil. "It shouldn't have happened! She shouldn't have sent you into a situation that wasn't safe!"

Casey started at him incredulously. "Have you lost your mind?" he growled. "You know what a spy does. You know it's risky. So does Walker. It's what we all signed up for."

Chuck was about to come back with some cruel retort, and Ellie must have known it, because she gave him a look and said pointedly, "I know you're upset but this isn't helping."

Chuck nodded and hung his head, once again flooded with worries about Sarah. He hadn't meant to argue with Casey like that, but all this waiting was driving him crazy.

After another couple of hours and a few bites of breakfast that Ellie brought from the cafeteria, a woman in a white coat finally entered the waiting room. Chuck stood up immediately, hoping that she would have some good news about Sarah.

"Are you Mrs. Bartowski's husband?" the doctor asked him.

"Yes," he replied. The thrill he normally felt at hearing Sarah referred to as Mrs. Bartowski was conspicuously absent.

"She's out of surgery, but still in critical condition. We were able to stop most of the internal bleeding, and the rest will hopefully heal on it's own."  
Chuck nodded, not sure whether that was a good thing.

"Her left femur and tibia both had breaks," she continued, "so her whole leg is in a cast, as is her left arm. And, she fractured her fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae, so those will need to heal as well."

Chuck was completely overwhelmed by the information he had just been given. He looked over at Ellie and was glad to see that she seemed to have understood what the doctor had said. He'd have to have her spell it out for him later.

"So, will she be okay?" asked Chuck, too nervous and tired to be embarrassed by how dumb his question sounded.

"It's too soon to tell," the doctor answered kindly. "She's in a medically induced coma right now, so that her body can heal as well as to save her from the pain of her injuries. If she makes it through the next couple of days we'll try waking her up and go from there."

Chuck felt his chest seize up at the way the doctor said _if she makes it_, but he pushed his fear aside. "Could I see her?" he asked hopefully.

The doctor nodded and said, "Yes. She won't be awake but you're welcome to sit with her as long as you'd like. Just ask the nurses' station for directions to her room."

Chuck managed to give the doctor some semblance of a smile as she walked out of the room. Once she had left, he turned towards his sister, needing her to translate what the doctor had said.

"Sarah's hurt pretty badly Chuck," Ellie said honestly. "If her body can heal itself, then she should be okay. If not...well...Sarah's strong. If anyone can get through this it's Sarah."

Chuck was comforted by his sister's positive attitude, but he knew that she wasn't able to tell him that Sarah would definitely be okay, and that scared him. But Chuck knew that he needed to be with Sarah. He hoped that he could will her to get better, give her strength to heal.

"I'm going to go sit with her," he informed Ellie and Casey.

They nodded, unsurprised, but Ellie warned, "She's not going to look like herself Chuck. She'll have a lot of bandages and wires and tubes attached. I just don't want it to scare you."

Chuck thanked Ellie and Casey saying, "Thanks for sitting with me. I'm going to be here for a while, so you guys should get home and rest."

"Alright," said Ellie reluctantly. "I'll come by after my shift today and bring you some dinner."

"I'll let Beckman know what the doctor said," assured Casey, before leaving with Ellie.

Chuck sat alone for a few minutes, trying to prepare himself for seeing a comatose Sarah. Once he realized that being prepared for such a thing was impossible, he went to get directions to where he could find his wife.

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Thanks for reading! Please review! I welcome comments and constructive criticism.


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